Let Me Go
by r4ven3
Summary: Set from the final scenes in 10.06. This time, the story is told from Ruth's point of view. This is a difficult story to tell.
1. Chapter 1

_**I was not sure whether I should go ahead and write this. It is proving to be quite difficult to write – in more ways than one. Updates are coming, but will not be as often as I have normally updated. This story will require a more delicate touch.**_

_**It is not a happy story at all, but I feel I have to tell it all the same.**_

_**Let me know what you think.**_

She feels so tired, and so, so cold. As much as she'd like to stay here to live with him in Suffolk, in the cottage with the front door with green paint peeling, she feels herself being drawn away. It is peaceful where she is going, but she can't help worrying about him all the same. She suddenly knows how much he needs her and relies upon her, and here she is leaving him behind - again.

"Harry," she manages to blurt out, struggling for breath. "We were never meant to have those things." She takes one last look at him, his true feelings for her unmistakable in his beautiful eyes. She knows for certain how much he loves her, and how truly she has loved him. That is enough. It will have to be.

"She's arresting," Erin calls out to Dimitri from behind Harry's shoulder.

From somewhere just above herself she watches dispassionately as Dimitri kneels beside her and stabs the adrenalin-filled syringe into her body, but to no avail. Were they able to hear her she could have told them not to bother. She's already gone.

Her limbs are heavy. Her side where Sasha stabbed her no longer a sharp and throbbing pain. Harry's voice, so dear, so near a moment ago, drifts away like a whispered promise on a light breeze. Suddenly she's standing beside him, watching him kiss her lips, hold her (like she'd longed for years for him to hold her), cry as he rests his face against hers. Harry's shoulders shake with his sobs, his face broken in pain. She lightly touches his shoulder, but he seems unaware of her touch.

"Harry," she says, leaning close to him. "Harry, I'm here. It's alright. I haven't left you."

But he doesn't answer. He just holds her body and sobs, his cheek against hers, his hand – the one covered in her blood – held aloft like it had been burned in a naked flame. And try as she might, she can't feel his cheek against her own. She can't feel his tears.

Ruth wants to cry, but she can't. She's far too calm for crying. She turns to see Erin, her face stricken, concern for Harry written all over the younger woman's face.

"It's alright Erin," Ruth says. "I'm alright, really."

But Erin doesn't hear her. Nor does Calum or Dimitri. And Sasha Gavrik lies on the ground, holding his leg and moaning in pain. She feels nothing for him, this man who took her life.

"Let's leave them," Calum says to Erin. What he means is: _Let's leave Harry in private to say his last goodbyes to the woman he loves._

She knows for sure now.

She has gone where no-one can see her, or hear her. And this time she cannot come back. There are other people around her, people who were not here a moment ago. At least a dozen of them. She recognises no-one. They all have something to say to her, but she is not interested. _Go away_, she thinks, and they do. Just like that.

Looking back at Harry holding her body, crying still, his hands holding her face, she can now pin a name to this elusive feeling. Ruth sits back on the grass behind Harry and lets it all out. She cries, and shouts and punches her hands into the grass beneath her.

"_This isn't fair!_" she cries. "We'd only just found one another – and now look at us!" Separated by a gulf no-one can cross.

No-one can hear her, of course. She just had to say that, to express her sadness. This moment has been lived by she and Harry before. When they'd parted at the wharf just over 5 years earlier, she had left him behind – alone, bereft – just as she was doing now. The memory of his face – sad, lost, bewildered, _guilt-_ridden – accompanied her throughout her time in exile. Now, as then, all she has of him to take with her, wherever she is now about to go, is a picture in shades of grey – a picture of regret, of pain, of love lost, of opportunities gone.

It isn't fair. _It was not supposed to be like this_.

They had waited so long.

She feels no guilt. She is too angry.

She hears the helicopter approaching. She hears it before the others, so her hearing must be more acute now. She stands back as her body is loaded and flown away, leaving her colleagues, and the man who murdered her in place of Harry, to watch it leave.

Harry stands apart from the others, his face a study in grief and loss. Her blood stains his shirt. She hopes he'll throw the shirt away. She wants to go to him to wrap her arms around him, but this would be for her, because he cannot see her, he'll not be able to feel her. He has no idea she is still here.

Which must mean she is as lost as he.


	2. Chapter 2

_**This is a very angsty chapter. Things will take a turn in Chapter 3.**_

**oOo**

She quite quickly discovers how to get around in her new state of being. All she has to do is to think of a place, a person, and she is there. In an instant. She visits the Grid, her mother, and then Harry. The first time she visits him he is in his house after her funeral, and he is on the toilet, and she finds herself standing right in front of him, the closed door behind her. She is relieved to find him fully clothed, and sitting on the closed toilet seat, leaning back against the cistern, his eyes closed.. He is avoiding the people who are gathered downstairs to pay their respects to her. _Go away and leave me alone_, his thoughts say of the other mourners in his house.

Only Erin stays. She will not leave him on his own, although more than anything he wants her to go. Erin is concerned he'll take the easy way out, but Ruth knows he is unlikely to do that. He ignores Erin, and so eventually she leaves.

She discovers Harry is aware of the irony – that to discover the extent of his love for her, she first had to die. She has sacrificed herself so that Harry can discover the depth of his love for her, and by extension, his capacity for loving. From where she is now she can see that this has been a privilege. It is her gift to him.

It's just that to Harry, it feels like a curse. _I always let down those I love_, is his private mantra.

As well as his thoughts, Ruth can also sense his feelings.

He is carrying guilt – buckets of it, if in fact guilt comes in buckets. He knows that he should have been the one to die. The shard of glass may have been smeared with Ruth's blood, but it had Harry's name on it. He believes it will be impossible for him to ever get past that simple fact.

He still loves her – more than ever - and he misses her. He wants to wrap his love for her around him like a blanket, to keep him warm, and to keep himself alive and functioning. And he wishes to stay alive and functioning just so he can hold on to his memory of her. Towers has told him to stay away from work until he is ready to come back, _if_ he ever wants to come back. Bloody Towers! Apart from his memories of Ruth, work is all Harry has left, and he needs it now more than ever. He has much for which to atone, and work is to be his avenue of atonement.

Day by day, for the remainder of his life, he will be paying for having not stood in front of Ruth when Sasha Gavrik approached him in a rage.

When Harry climbs his stairs to bed, Ruth accompanies him. She lays on the bed next to him, watching him as he twists and turns from side to side, longing for the oblivion sleep will bring him. She talks to him, hoping he will hear her.

"Harry, it's me," she says. "I'm right here, next to you. I won't leave you until you tell me to. I'll stay with you until you no longer need me."

During the night he is suddenly wide awake and cannot get back to sleep. She reaches out to touch his face, stroking his cheek with her finger. Harry suddenly sits up and looks around him. He sees nothing, but it appears he felt _something_.

Ruth stays beside him throughout the night. If only she had been able to do this while she was still alive. He wakes before sunrise, and remembering what had happened the day before, he cries quietly into his pillow, the words, _"I miss you so much. I miss you so much,"_ spoken between his sobs. Ruth feels what he feels, and again places a hand on him – this time his shoulder – but he seems unable to feel it. Were he to feel her touch again, and what's more, to be able to identify the source of that touch, Ruth has no idea what she will do. For all she knows, she could be setting him up for a breakdown.

Five days later Ruth sits next to Harry at her own funeral, just as she had at so many other funerals. She places her hand on top of his, but he shows no sign that he feels her touch. He is barely holding it together. To anyone other than she, he seems quiet and calm, even shut down. Her senses tell her that he is like a pane of glass being buffeted by strong winds. A sudden gust, a falling branch is all it would take to break him. He is terrified of breaking down, especially here. He wants to conduct himself with the dignity she deserves, even if it takes all the self-control he can gather to achieve this. Malcolm sits on Harry's other side, providing an oasis of calm and peace in a situation which makes little sense to all who are participating. Ruth's mother and step-father sit in front of Harry. Towers and the other members of the security services sit behind them.

As the mourners walk to the graveside, Ruth holds back. She suddenly considers her presence to be voyeuristic and somehow wrong. She stays by the church, just outside the doorway, watching from afar. Harry's body language displays a reluctance to be there, a desire to get it over with as soon as possible. He reminds her of a piano wire under strain, about to snap. Ruth doesn't follow the mourners to the pub afterwards. There are enough people there to look after Harry for her.

With the mourners gone, Ruth is hovering near her graveside, wanting but not wanting to go nearer, when a familiar voice causes her to spin around.

"Hello Ruth," her father says. He is dressed in the clothes he always wore around home on weekends, before he'd been confined to hospital. He looks young and healthy. "I've been watching over you these last few days," he adds.

"You didn't do much of a job, then, did you?" She allows him to embrace her. As pleased as she is to see him again, she is afraid he will expect her to go with him and leave Harry behind. She knows how it works. She's watched _Medium_, and _Ghost Whisperer, _and she'd even watched _Afterlife_, scoffing at the sheer improbability of it throughout every episode.

"Harry needs you," her father adds. "You have to stay with him for a while. He's not coping. We're worried about him."

"We?"

"All of us. Me, your Uncle Sid and Auntie Em, Harry's brother, his parents, and even his grandparents. There are a bunch of them watching on right now – your lot, you know?"

"_My_ lot?"

"Security people – the spies who have died. Young people, most of them. Too young to be on this side of the veil."

Ruth has nothing to say to that. She wonders why she'd not thought of Danny and Jo and Ros and Adam and Fiona, Zaf and Tariq. She has now joined their little club.

Ruth's father continues. "Harry has to endure this, but for a while you'll have to help him."

"How?"

"You're the one who loves him. You'll know."

Then he is gone.

This – _is this Heaven?_ - is nothing like GCHQ or MI-5. She has no manual or job description to refer to and follow. Like Harry, she is on her own. Up the creek without a paddle. Or a map.


	3. Chapter 3

_**OK, so this is about to go a bit Allison Dubois. In attempting to lift the tone/mood, I am having to enter this zone. I didn't want there to be chapter after chapter of pain and grief. I couldn't have sustained that**_._** So – just so I don't slash my own wrists, I am about to create a twist in the tale...**_

**oOo**

The first thing Harry does after the funeral is to arrange to inspect the house in Suffolk, the one Ruth had wanted to buy. She doesn't go there with him. She can't bear to do that. She hopes he won't buy the cottage, because then she'll have to be with him there – where they had planned to live together – and the absolute irony of it all would be too much for her.

When he arrives home, she knows he will not buy the cottage. He heads straight for the drinks cabinet and pours three fingers of Glenfiddich into a glass. For the first time in the week since she died, Harry's dog, Scarlett, pricks up her ears at Ruth's presence. The dog looks right at her. Then she growls a low guttural growl.

"Dopey dog," Harry mutters, shutting Scarlett in the laundry.

For the next week Ruth stays with Harry while he passes his days like an automaton. All his behaviour is automatic, habitual, robotic. Each night she lays next to him on his bed, watching over him while he sleeps, mostly fitfully and shallowly. Some nights he cries himself to sleep, others he sleeps heavily and noisily because he is drunk, having crashed on to his bed fully clothed.

During this time Ruth is progressively overwhelmed by Harry's sadness, so overwhelmed that she is not sure she can help him. He is beyond comforting, and she is becoming weighed down by his grief.

She decides she should visit Malcolm. She doesn't know what else to do. When she `arrives' he is tending to his mother, helping her out of her chair and guiding her to the dining table. Ruth stands at a distance and tries a new approach. She _wills_ him to contact Harry. _Ring Harry, Malcolm. He needs you now. Go to him. He needs you._

Suddenly, Malcolm looks up and stares across the room towards where Ruth is leaning against a cupboard. She can tell that he doesn't _see_ her, but she's certain he senses her.

"Mum," Malcolm says quietly, "I have to go out this afternoon. I have to see someone. I'll get Marge to come in and sit with you."

With that, Malcolm leaves, and Ruth sits in the car with him, as he drives well over the speed limit towards Harry's house.

"Harry, sorry to do this to you," Malcolm says, walking down the hallway ahead of Harry, "but something very strange just happened to me while I was at home."

"Drink, Malcolm?" Harry asks.

"Just a cup of tea would be nice."

The two men sit at the table over a pot of English Breakfast, and to Ruth, Malcolm seems suddenly unsure. She already knows what it is he plans to say. _Go on, Malcolm, _she wills_, spit it out._

"Harry," Malcolm begins, "do you believe in life after death?"

"If I did I wouldn't be in the mess I'm in now, would I? And you're the only one who knows that I'm in a mess, by the way. Don't spread it around if you can help it. The last thing I need right now is a stretch in Tring."

"Fair point. It's just that a little while ago I was home, and I swore that I heard Ruth speaking to me."

Harry laughs. "Now who's the crazy one?"

"No, please hear me out. I was tending to Mum, and she wasn't speaking and neither was I. Then, just as I got her comfortably seated, I heard Ruth telling me to ring you and that you needed me."

"Well, if she did, then she's mistaken, because I didn't ask for you."

"No, you didn't, but _she did_. She asked me to come to you. I had the distinct feeling she's worried about you. And just when we sat down here at the table, I was thinking of not mentioning any of this. It can be a bit far-fetched to some. But I heard her – _felt_ her – telling me to `spit it out'. She wanted me to tell you."

Harry has gone a little pale. He sighs heavily.

"Harry," Malcolm continues, "I know you're not handling Ruth's death very well. You don't have to hide this from me. I know how much you loved her, and she you, and I also know that you feel responsible for her death. I hate to see you this way. I – I think – I _believe_ that Ruth is here, in this house, watching over you." Ruth can feel Malcolm's nervousness. He expects Harry to be angry, and an angry Harry is a force of nature.

Surprisingly, when Harry looks up at him, Malcolm can see the shimmer of tears in his eyes.

"Now, why would she do that?" Harry asks quietly.

"Firstly," Malcolm begins, "let me tell you what happened after my father died. Mum was very low for a long time, and then something changed. It happened quite suddenly. About a month after he'd died, I felt him around us. It was just like he was there, except we couldn't detect him with our five senses. Both Mum and I could sense him, and with practice, we were able to figure out what he was saying to us. It was an instinctual thing. Then after a time he left us, but only once we were settled, and ready to move on with our lives. Harry, just suspend your judgements for a moment. Who is the person who loves you the most?"

"Ruth."

"And were you to have been the one who was stabbed and killed, and you found yourself in the world of spirit, free to go anywhere you liked, where would you go?"

"To her."

"So – let's just assume for a moment that there is such a thing as a spirit. And if there is, that Ruth now exists in this realm. Where do you think she'd be right now?"

"Here...with me." Tears spill slowly from Harry's eyes down his cheeks. He wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his jumper.

"Yes," Malcolm replies. "And I believe she's here right now. I can sense her. Ruth had – still has – a certain calm strength, and a warmth around her, and I can feel that – in this room right now. Has your dog been acting strangely?"

Harry looks sharply at Malcolm. "Scarlett? Yes, a couple of times she's barked at nothing, and I had to put her out, because she wouldn't stop."

"Where was she when this happened?"

"In the living room. She was barking at the cupboard by the wall."

"Harry, perhaps she was barking at _something_ that was standing by the cupboard. It's a possibility. Animals and small children can sense the spirit world. They can _see_ those in spirit."

"But I don't believe in any of this hokum. I just can't accept it."

"That doesn't mean that it isn't true. I was a skeptic until after my father died. Just keep an open mind, Harry. It can't do any harm."

Ever since Harry had lost Ruth, at the back of his mind had been a worm of a thought burrowing away...how was it possible for the brilliance, intelligence, compassion and warmth of this woman to have instantly disappeared from the collective intelligence on earth?

He could not come to terms with her spark being lost forever, so this leaves him free to explore some other concepts.

So that is how, over the next few days, Harry begins to open his mind to the possibility that Ruth is present in his house.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Thank you to all who have been kind enough to leave reviews. I had been a little worried – killing off Ruth & all, and leaving her dead (just like those bastard Kudos people had done!) - that you would all be sending out a posse to lynch me. I also thought it would make an interesting exercise – from a writer's perspective – to follow Ruth after her death to see where that took things. We writers have difficulty with reality, so I thought I'd `go there'.**_

_**Things lift considerably in this chapter.**_

**oOo**

Harry develops a routine which does not include Glenfiddich, staying at home, or crying himself to sleep. He gets up each the morning, showers, shaves, dresses, eats a cooked breakfast, and then takes Scarlett for a walk. After bringing her home, then goes out again on his own, the early morning air brisk and refreshing, blowing out the gossamer threads of grief which had threatened to become his reality for evermore.

He is still grieving for Ruth, but he no longer loses himself inside this grief. His heart – so newly opened – is hurting, but it is not yet completely broken...damaged, certainly, but not beyond repair.

Most days he finds himself on the Thames embankment, and if it is free, he sits on the bench he and Ruth had sat on so many times in the past. While sitting here he feels closer to her. While sitting here, gazing across the water, he imagines she may be sitting beside him, on this bench. He begins to imagine conversations with her. He thinks something, and he imagines she answers him, also in thought. He is sure these conversations are taking place in his head, and that they have nothing at all to do with the possibility that she is sitting beside him, but a man can dream a little, can't he?

He still misses her every moment of his waking day, and even throughout the night while he sleeps and dreams – almost always of her.

Then one day his whole life, and his concept of reality, is turned on its head.

He is sitting on the bench by the Thames, the one he and Ruth had occupied while they'd talked. Mostly as he sits here, he is not bothered by other people. Lost in his own private world of thoughts and memories, it is for him as though other people occupy a totally separate cosmos. On this day, overcast and cold, a young mother and her small child – a girl of about 4 or 5 years – approach the bench, and prepare to sit, when the child speaks up, her voice piercing Harry's private world.

"Mummy, not _there_," she cries. "You'll sit on the _lady_."

Harry looks up sharply. The mother smiles apologetically at him. "Kids," she says. "This one sees imaginary people everywhere."

Harry only hesitates for a moment before addressing the child's mother. "Can I ask your daughter some questions about the lady she sees?" he asks.

"Be my guest," the mother replies, rolling her eyes, "but I warn you she has a very vivid imagination." The mother sits at the other end of the bench, while the little girl still stands, looking at Harry with expectation and curiosity.

"What's your name?" Harry asks the child.

"Molly."

"Well, Molly, I want you to know that your eyes are so much better than mine, because I can't see the lady sitting here."

"But she's sitting right next to you," Molly cries loudly, pointing at the space on the bench next to Harry, "and she's touching you with her hand. Right here," she adds, reaching forward and patting Harry's wrist with her own small hand, "and she's smiling at me and...she's trying to tell me something."

"What is she saying to you, Molly?"

"She's telling me her name."

"What's her name, Molly?"

"Roof."

"That's a new one to me," laughs the mother, a little embarrassed. "She doesn't even know anyone called Ruth."

"But I do," says Harry quietly, his heart beating a mile a minute. "What does she look like, Molly?"

"Her hair is like Mummy's, and she has big, big eyes, and she's wearing a blue dress. She's smiling, but I think she looks really sad."

Harry looks at the mother properly for the first time. She has dark brown hair which falls in a wave to her shoulders.

"She's saying something else to me. There's something she wants me to tell you." Molly waits and watches. "She says your name is Harry. Is your name really Harry?"

Harry nods, his mouth dry, unable to form words.

"She says she loves you lots – _this_ much," Molly demonstrates by holding her arms as wide apart as she possibly can. "Is she your girlfriend? Why can't you see her? She's right _there_," Molly adds, pointing with her finger and leaning in towards the bench.

"My eyes are not so good these days," Harry says, fighting the choking in his throat. "And yes, I guess you could say she's my girlfriend."

"She says that you should go home now, cos you left Scarlett shut in the laundry. Who's Scarlett? Is she your little girl? You shouldn't put her in the laundry. She won't like that."

"Scarlett is my dog, Molly, and I think Ruth is right. I did forget to let her out of the laundry before I came out."

Harry feels like he's been punched in the stomach by a very large man. This child, whom he has never met before in his life, has just provided the proof he has been hoping for. Ruth _is_ with him. She sits beside him - right here, right now. And yet 17 days ago she had died in his arms.

Harry thanks Molly and her mother – herself wide-eyed and incredulous - and quickly walks home. There he finds Scarlett shut in the laundry, just as Molly had said he would. On letting her out, she begins to growl that low growl, her eyes fixed on the space just behind Harry's right shoulder.

"Hush, Scarlett," he says, "it's just Ruth." He turns to his right, addressing the space behind his shoulder. "I guess it's just you and me and the dog, Ruth. And, in case you're wondering, I love you too. I should have told you that years ago, before you were in Cyprus." He smiles in the direction Scarlett is still staring. The moment feels very intimate to him, although he is also aware of how bizarre it is.

It is in that moment of intimacy – in his house, with the dog and his dead loved one – that Harry decides it is about time he returned to work.


	5. Chapter 5

That night, the eighteenth night Ruth had spent in Harry's house since she had died, the atmosphere in his bedroom has taken a turnaround. Harry at last accepts her presence, and she lays beside him – as she wished so often would happen before she'd died – and listens to him tell her what is in his heart and mind.

The conversation is chiefly one-sided, but she hopes he understands at least part of what she thinks in reply.

"I wish I'd had the courage to get this close to you before," Harry begins. "We may have saved ourselves a lot of heartache. I've been missing you so much...but seeing that you're here, I expect you already know that. How does this work, Ruth? Will you be with me for the rest of my life? Tell me...and I'll try to figure out your answers."

_I will be with you to guide you, Harry...to get you back in the land of the living. Then I'll have to leave. After that, I'm not sure, but I think the idea is for you to make a life without me._

She touches his arm gently, running her finger up to his shoulder, and back down to his forearm. He turns towards where she lies beside him, and she can see the tears forming in his eyes. It is then she knows that he has `heard' her, and felt her touch.

"I felt that," he says. "It felt just like those times our hands touched, and I'd feel a bolt of electricity through my body. I think I understand what you're saying." He stops speaking for a while, staring at the ceiling.

_I won't go until you're ready to live your life without me near you...until you're ready to move on...from _us_. I'm told it will happen. There's no set agenda. We'll both know when the time is right. This is a transition, not a permanent state of living. It's a good thing that you want to go back to work._

"I have to go back to work," he continues, "despite what Towers told me. I can't just retire, not when I was planning to retire with you. I hope you don't mind that I didn't buy your cottage. I wouldn't have been able to hold myself together had I lived there – without you, without a job to occupy me."

This time Ruth glides a finger across his face, from his cheek down to his jawline. She takes her time about it. Harry shivers, then touches his face where she'd just touched him. He is a fast learner.

They continue their `conversation' into the small hours. Mostly, he seems to absorb her intention, even if he can't actually hear her. Ruth is sure that their bond is being strengthened, and she is grateful for the opportunity. Ruth knows that even a bond formed after death is still a valid entity. She has been worried that Harry would not want to let her go when the time comes. What concerns her now is that _she_ will be the one who will not want to move on. She has no idea about the consequences were that to happen.

The night before Harry is to return to the Grid, he retires to bed earlier than usual, since the next morning he has a 7 am start. As has become her habit, Ruth lies next to him. He seems to know and accept that she is there.

"I need to tell you," he begins, "that there will never be anyone else for me. You were, and still are the love of my life. No-one can replace you. I cannot imagine still living and breathing, and not loving you."

Ruth has been expecting this. She had felt the same way when she was in Cyprus. She hadn't loved George in the way she had already grown to love Harry. George had been her companion and protector, and her lover – nothing more. He hadn't taken ownership of her heart. Once she had fallen in love with Harry, only he had occupied her heart, and would for the rest of her days and beyond. While in Cyprus, she moved in with George and made love with him because she was still young, and because she had never expected to see Harry again. Her situation then was similar to the one in which Harry now finds himself. He has stated his intention to remain in exile while he is living. She is flattered, but she's not sure that this will be healthy for Harry. She `tells' him so.

"I don't want anyone else, I have no interest in someone else," he says aloud. "I don't intend to share only a small part of myself with someone. If I can't give all of myself, then it isn't fair. Part of me will always be with you. That's just the way it is. In effect, I've been widowed." He hesitates before continuing. "Will we meet after I die?"

Ruth had been waiting for this question. She doesn't want to give him any ideas – ideas about hastening his death. She knows that suicide is not considered a viable option in the world of spirit, although she has no idea how she knows this.

As though he is in tune with the train of her thoughts, Harry replies, "I'm not planning to top myself, Ruth. I just want to know if I can look forward to seeing you again after I die – whenever that happens. With my luck, I'll probably live in voluntary celibacy until I'm 97."

_I've already seen my father, so I think that's something we can both look forward to._ Harry smiles as she runs a finger over his lips. Then she `tells' him about her meeting with her father on the day of her funeral. By the time she finishes the story, Harry is asleep, his chest moving up and down slowly and steadily, his sleep untroubled.

Harry returns to the Grid the next day, entering his office amid uncomfortable stares from the floor. No-one calls out `welcome back', or `good to see you'. He has a temporary desire to walk out of Thames House and never come back again, when Erin knocks and then slides back the door to his office.

"Harry, we're all glad you've decided to come back," she says. "We've all been worried about you."

"Thank you, Erin, I'm fine. Fine enough to work, anyway. I trust you managed to keep the madness at bay in my absence."

And this is when Erin tells him that a new intelligence analyst is to begin work the next day. She watches him carefully for signs of anger or distress, but there are none – none that she can see.

"I'm looking forward to it," Harry replies. Privately, he is anything but.

As he sees it, the presence of a new intelligence analyst is salt rubbed into his wounds. Despite that, he is determined to at least be polite and welcoming. The rest will be up to this new analyst.


	6. Chapter 6

On his second day back at work, Harry is on the Grid by 7 am. The new intelligence analyst arrives, as instructed, at 8 o'clock sharp.

Her name is Anna Moretti. She is everything Harry has dreaded Ruth's replacement being.

She is Ruth's replacement.

She is young – only 28.

She is a graduate from Durham University (Mathematical Sciences, majoring in statistics and probability)

She is ambitious.

She is highly talented and intelligent.

She is Ruth's replacement.

She is arrogant.

She does not yet know her limitations.

She is Ruth's replacement.

She is everything Harry had once been, so he is familiar with her desire to impress, to be seen as the best ever, to reach a stage in her career where she is above being questioned – by anyone.

What is worse, she is the antithesis of Ruth.

She has no humility.

She is as cold as an Arctic wind.

She seems unaffected by criticism.

She thinks kindness is a body of water in Scotland.

He calls a briefing in the meeting room to introduce her to the team, and to find out what she is capable of. When it is Anna's turn to say her piece, she unwittingly does herself no favours.

"As you no doubt know, I'm here to replace Ruth Evershed. I hear she was the best."

What follows is a distinctly uncomfortable silence, as the other members of the team attempt looking anywhere but at Harry. They all know how he's been after Ruth's death. News travels fast in their small world. None of them want to remind Harry of what he's lost, both personally and professionally.

"Yes, she was the best," Harry replies quietly. "You'll never replace her. Don't ever imagine you can."

Anna seems momentarily nonplussed, while Erin, Calum and Dimitri smile to themselves. Serves her bloody right. Best of all, Harry appears to be back on form. The team emit a collective sigh.

After the meeting, Anna seeks out Erin.

"What was _that_ about?" Anna asks. "Why all the weirdness around Ruth Evershed?"

"Ruth Evershed was a genius, but she was also humble, and we all loved her. Every one of us. She died tragically and unnecessarily. Had she not, you'd still be looking for a job. Don't _ever_ think you can replace her. All you can ever do is to aspire to be like her."

The new girl has been told her place, but it is unlikely she'll pay attention.

Her first attempt to cover herself in glory goes a bit tits up.

She uncovers some internet chat about bombings planned for North London. It's all very non-specific, and Harry is not interested. Being used to Ruth's style of checking and re-checking her information, he asks Anna to go back and check her sources.

"The bombers are Turkish, and they're targeting government run schools." Anna insists. "I think we should inform the relevant authorities."

"How sure are you?" Harry asks, aware that this isn't Ruth, and so questioning her is necessary.

"As sure as I've ever been of anything."

"Calum isn't convinced," Harry counters. "He thinks that the information source is unreliable."

"Calum isn't trained in analysis," Anna answers, her irritation beginning to show.

"Calum has been filling in for the past 4 weeks, since Ruth – since our last analyst moved to the Home Office."

"So," Anna smiles as she steps over the line. "What is it about this Ruth? Why was she so special?"

"That," says Harry, raising his voice, like he used to in the old days, the days before Ruth had entered his life and calmed him the hell down, "is none of your damn business!"

The new intelligence analyst leaves his office, and Harry escapes to the roof. Out there, in the cool morning air, he is able to breathe more freely, allowing the anger to leave his body.

"Oh, Ruth," he says aloud, "where are you when I need you?"

_I'll never be far from your side, Harry. I'm wherever you need me to be. Think of me and I'll be with you._

Despite a dead stillness in the air, Harry feels a cool breeze touch his face. His skin prickles with her presence. The tension in his body leaves, and once again he feels loved, as opposed to abandoned.

"What am I to do, Ruth? Did I come back too early? What is it with this woman? I don't think I can work with her. And the real reason I can't work with her is because she's not you."

_Until I am gone from here – from you – no-one, not even the most competent analyst in the world will satisfy you. Anyone they send you will not measure up to me. That is how you see it. This young woman has to learn the lesson of humility, and you are just the person to teach her that lesson._

"So is that how it works, Ruth? The people who come into our lives are the ones we need most, whether we want them or not. Please don't leave me, Ruth. I don't think I could stand it if you did."

Harry is feeling sad and vulnerable. As much as he is grateful and even happy to have Ruth with him, even in spirit form, he suddenly misses her physical presence. He wants to be able to touch her, even if only fleetingly. He can feel the tears welling in his eyes.

"Are you OK, Harry?" It's Erin. She has managed to step on to the roof without him hearing her.

Harry nods, since he can't trust his voice at this moment. "No, cancel that," Harry adds. "I'm not all that OK. I yelled at the new analyst."

"And you miss Ruth," Erin adds quietly. "We all do, but no-one more than you. You lost the woman you love, Harry. It's going to take you some time for you to come to terms with that."

As much as Harry wants to snap at Erin, he feels he can hardly give her a bollocking for having told the truth. He passes a hand across his eyes, wiping away the tears.

"Dimitri and I are here if you need us, Harry. Let me deal with Anna."

"Thank you, Erin, but I think that I have to deal with her myself. You can't keep me wrapped in cotton wool. I have to face a Ruthless world eventually. I'm thinking that I might just follow the new girl's intel – just this once – and see where it leads us."

"Is that wise?" asks Erin.

"No, it's not wise at all. Ruth would never advise it. But then again, Ruth would never have come to me with such a half-arsed story, either. I'm fine, Erin. I can handle this."

Once Erin leaves the roof, Harry smiles. "This is your work, isn't it, Ruth? You brought Erin up here."

The sudden breeze-from-nowhere again cools his face. He smiles to himself.

Against his better judgement, Harry sends out Dimitri and Justin, another one of the new operatives, to investigate Anna's `information'. Just because he can, he insists Anna accompany them. Before they have driven more than two blocks from Thames House, they are informed of a series of explosions at an address in Hackney. Dimitri plants his foot.

What they find when they reach the address is a bunch of 15-year olds who had paid far too much attention in science class. They'd found a recipe for a bomb on the internet, and surprisingly it had worked without blowing the kids' faces off in the process. But it had scared the neighbours, and it was they who had called it in. The fact that the boys are Turkish is almost incidental to the occurrence, apart from the fears of the non-Turkish neighbours. Harry hands the case on to the police, hoping they will do a good enough job of scaring the pants off the boys, so that he – or anyone else in the security service – will not have to deal with them with more severity some time in the future.

Anna Moretti is humbled, but maybe not enough. There will be considerably more opportunities, but for now, the Turkish boy bombers will have to be enough.

"You knew, didn't you?" Harry said aloud once he was back home in his own house. He felt the tingle on his skin of Ruth's presence. Scarlett stared over Harry's shoulder, but no longer growled when she detected Ruth in the room. "How does this work, Ruth? Can you see into the future? Tell me."

_I have no more insight than you do, Harry. It's just that without my body, I seem to be able to tap into another kind of knowledge. Everyone has access to it, but we've been trained to trust our intellects over this other insight._

"So, will you be my guiding light, Ruth? Is this why you're still here?"

_Looking back on my physical life, I can now see that my father was guiding me so much of the time. I now believe that he led me to MI-5 and to you. Meeting you, working with you, loving you was one of the most painful, frustrating, but beautiful experiences I had during my life. I have to thank you for that, Harry. Thank you for loving me and protecting me, and you _did_ protect me, so many times. It's now my turn to protect you_.

Later, Harry fell asleep knowing that Ruth was with him, protecting him and gently guiding the direction of his life. Whilst he found this comforting, it did not replace her physical presence. Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, Harry feels guilt gnawing away at him. She said he'd protected her, but the one time she'd needed her protection the most, he'd not acted quickly enough. He now is to pay for that oversight for the rest of his life.


	7. Chapter 7

_**This is the penultimate chapter of this fic. Loose ends will be tied up & concluded in next one.**_

**oOo**

Anna Moretti slowly finds her feet on the Grid. She is not popular member of the team, but she is developing into a fine analyst, so for this she is tolerated. Her greatest short-coming is her reluctance to listen to other opinions. She is not naturally a team player, but she is – quite reluctantly – learning how to be one. With the London Olympics looming and the skills of Section D to be tested in a more open and public arena, Harry rings Malcolm, and asks him to meet for a drink.

As Harry drives to their agreed destination – a small pub in a back street a few miles north of the river – he is aware of Ruth's presence in the car with him. He is by now adequately skilled at recognising when she is with him and when she isn't. As Malcolm had told him weeks before, it is a feeling, a sense of her presence, which tells him when she is close by. He has developed an ability to recognise and understand her communication. Chiefly they communicate through thought, intention and feeling. If he has understood Ruth correctly – and he's almost certain he has – people who share a bond of love while living will have an easier and more open pathway for communication once one of them dies. After her death, Harry is at last accepting the depth of love they shared while she was alive, and he often – too often – wishes he'd acted upon his feelings sooner. The term, _love never dies_, now takes on new meaning. Ironically, the most powerful underpinning to his life now is the enduring love between he and Ruth. And he doesn't want to lose it – ever. His last thoughts at night, and his first thoughts upon awakening are always of her.

Once he and Malcolm are settled in the pub, each with a drink in front of them, Harry tells Malcolm about his communication with Ruth.

"That's marvellous," Malcolm replies. "I'm so happy it's working for you. You look better for it, Harry."

"I still miss her," Harry adds.

"That's to be expected. She was – she _is_ your soul mate."

"You know, I never fully understood that term until now. I'd always believed it to be some fanciful, romantic notion, but now I know that it exists."

"Of course it does," Malcolm replies.

"It's like we know what the other is thinking. We're connected."

"You always will be. That's what Mum used to say to me. She said she felt like she and my father were connected by a cord that could never be broken."

"Malcolm," Harry begins, relieved to have a subject to change to, "I'm looking to increase the team numbers in Section D leading up to the Olympics next year. I need someone I know and trust to bump up the numbers. If you're interested, I'd like to give you around eight months work, beginning in January. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June is to be the security services' curtain raiser to the Olympics. For us it will be a test run. We don't really expect there to be trouble, but we have to prepare, just in case. They're planning a flotilla on the Thames, can you believe it? Don't they know what a logistical nightmare that will be for us?"

"I'm very flattered, Harry. I've been out of the loop for so long, perhaps I'm a bit rusty."

"I'd be employing you chiefly as an intelligence analyst, Malcolm, and that job doesn't change a lot. I know that you keep abreast of the technology, so you'll slip right into it. I can't yet rely on our new analyst. I have to admit that I don't entirely trust her, as clever as she is. Next to Ruth, you are the most reliable and trustworthy analyst I've ever worked with."

"High praise, Harry."

"High praise it may be, but it's also true. I'm finding it very difficult to replace both you and Ruth."

"But you'll never be able to replace Ruth," Malcolm said quietly.

"I'm beginning to see that." All this talk of Ruth was leaving Harry feeling somewhat out of sorts.

"Let me think about it, Harry. I'd like to do it, so long as you know I'm only prepared to work on the Grid. I won't do field work."

"That's fine with me, Malcolm. It's your experience and expertise I'm after, not your brute strength."

Both men smile at the idea of Malcolm having brute strength. It is a little like saying Harry's most valuable qualities are his calm demeanour and his tact.

Harry was hoping he'd be busy with work when Christmas came around. It was to have been his and Ruth's first Christmas together as a couple, and they would no doubt have spent it at the cottage together. Catherine rings him a few days prior to Christmas, inviting herself around for Christmas lunch. He is grateful for the distraction of her company.

They have a pleasant time together, just the two of them, and while finishing off the Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon after lunch, Catherine asks him the one thing he has been hiding from her.

"Did something happen, Dad?" she asks carefully. "You're not yourself. You seem...a long way away."

Harry looks at her, deciding how much he should tell her. In the end, he recognises that she is no longer his little girl. She is a woman of 31, and most likely has faced challenges similar to his own.

"I lost someone," he begins.

"Dad, you're always losing someone in your job. It used to drive Mum crazy how you'd just ride through the losses of life like nothing had happened. She said you became hard-hearted. What's different about this person?"

"I loved her," he says, grateful for the opportunity to speak the truth to someone other than Malcolm. "I still love her. We were planning to retire from the service and live together."

"Oh, Dad, I'm so sorry. What was her name?"

"Ruth. Her name is Ruth. She was my intelligence analyst. We grew...very close...over the years. We'd known one another for almost 10 years. I...miss her...terribly."

Harry hadn't meant to cry when he spoke of Ruth, especially when speaking of her to his daughter - but he does. The tears flow freely, and Catherine steps to Harry's chair, sits on the armrest next to him, and puts her arms around him, holding him as he weeps for the loss of his loved one.

"Why didn't you tell me about her before?" Catherine asks. She had heard Ruth's name mentioned, but never in this way.

"Our...relationship...had a lot of ups and downs. I preferred to keep her to myself. I didn't like sharing her...with anyone."

"I understand."

After a while, Harry quietens, and still Catherine holds an arm around his shoulders. "Dad," she ventures, "do you realise that you speak about her in the present tense – like she's still here?"

"Yes, I do. It's quite deliberate. I don't want to let her go."

Catherine, realising that she is not an expert in this area, does not interrogate her father further. "Thank you for confiding in me, Dad. I'm sorry she died. I've wanted for so long to see you happy and settled with someone." She is old enough and wise enough to not suggest there will be other women some day. She suspects that for him, Ruth was and still is the only one for him.

It is dinner time by the time Catherine leaves his house on Christmas Day. He has an early night. He wants to lie in his bed and think of Ruth. She is there, of course. He can feel her, his skin prickling with her presence.

"I miss you," is all he can say. Missing her consumes him, especially on what was to have been their first Christmas Day in their cottage.

_I'm still here, Harry. I'll always be here for you. Until you die, we will have to meet across the veil in this way. We need never be apart._

Harry sleeps deeply. He dreams of Catherine. She is a small child and he is walking away from her, while she screams and calls out his name. He keeps walking, ignoring her cries.

Come New Year's Day, the numbers on the Grid begin to swell. By mid January there are six extra people working there, including Malcolm. By early April there may be as many as twelve extra staff. The increased numbers are temporary, and only because it is expected that there will be an increase in attempted acts of terrorism both before and during the London Olympics. Of particular importance is the work of the intelligence analysts. Malcolm is given the job of chief analyst, and his task is to coordinate the data which he and the other two analysts have gathered. Harry is conscious that had Ruth been alive, and had she still been working for the security services, she would have been the one doing Malcolm's job.

For the first time in a long time, Harry is imbued with a sense of purpose. This is the kind of work he'd signed up to do. There is a clear connection between the work of the security services and the safety of the nation. The others who work on the Grid during the first months of 2012 notice the man at the head of Section D. He is sure and earnest, but punishing of those who don't give their best. They also notice that he regularly disappears from the Grid, sometimes for an hour or two at a time. Only Malcolm knows why, and he'll never divulge what he knows to anyone.

There are times during the working day when Harry simply has to be by himself. He chooses either the roof, or the bench by the Thames where he and Ruth used to sit, and where one day a few months ago he met a child who was able to talk to Ruth. If he's being honest with himself, he'd like to meet that little girl again and thank her. While alone either on the roof or on the bench by the Thames, Harry talks to Ruth. He feels her near him, and she often comments upon how he is handling the lead up to the Olympic Games. He keeps these conversations secret, but he suspects that Malcolm knows about them. Malcolm knows almost everything. Harry has come to rely upon these interactions, and he doesn't know how he'll cope when Ruth leaves for good. He knows this will happen, although he doesn't know when. He feels that the only thing which lies between him functioning in the world, and him falling apart completely is his contact with her.

It is on one of these frequent sojourns out of the office that he remembers something from when he was 20 and his mother had just died. He had been home from university, and coming home unexpectedly one evening, he'd found his father in the kitchen talking to someone. Harry had stood in the doorway to the kitchen and overheard his father having what appeared to be a one-way conversation with no-one at all. Before he crept away to give his father some privacy, he heard him use his mother's name. At the time, Harry had worried that his Dad had been losing his marbles by talking to a dead woman. Now he is able to see that his parents had communicated with one another in much the same way as he is now communicating with Ruth.

Whilst Harry longs for Ruth – her touch, her eyes, her body – he feels that all things considered, communication with her across the veil is preferable to no communication at all. And despite his enjoyment of aspects of his life in the present, he knows he will not fight death when it comes calling for him.


	8. Chapter 8

Ruth is relieved that Harry is beginning to once again engage fully with his working life. He has no private life to speak of, other than the connection he has with her. He no longer goes to the pub with the others in Section D, and they have stopped asking him. They are all sensitive to his emotional state, but other than Malcolm, none of them know how best to interact with him. Other than the occasional official dinner – which he always attends alone – he very rarely goes out in the evenings. Most evenings he spends at work, which is where he most experiences a continued purpose to his life.

Ruth knows that eventually she must pull back from Harry. She will always be with him, but she has other tasks to attend to in the spirit world. She has barely had a chance to catch up with her father, and she has only fleetingly met the other people from Section D who had died before her. For now, and for as long as his need for her is so strong, Ruth will be with him whenever he wants her, however often that may be. Being in her current state, she can come back from anywhere at all in an instant when Harry calls.

She has garnered information about Harry and the life he has ahead of him. She has little idea where this information has come from, but she knows it to be reliable. It seems that her skills as an analyst have seeped through with her to the world of spirit. There is a lot she knows which she didn't know when she was living. Information just comes to her, like downloading a complete file from the internet. Ruth thinks the spirit world is the nearest thing to the internet outside the internet itself!

She has created a `file' on Harry's future. She doesn't know how she knows this, but she is sure it is true:

Harry will gain much from his overseeing the security for the 2012 Olympic Games. He will be praised and feted by those in power. He will not be swayed or seduced by this attention, having been witness to, and at the mercy of the vicissitudes and the foibles of the powerful for more years than he cares to count. He will put his head down and just get on with it.

Harry will learn how to live with his grief. In time it will no longer consume him in the way it does now. He will accept it as a part of his life without Ruth. He will do what he did as a younger man, and compartmentalise his emotions, so that he will only access his feelings of grief and loss when he is alone. While he is still alive, it will never fully leave him.

In two years, after having turned 60, Harry will take leave for three months and do the Grand Tour of Europe. He will travel alone. He will do this, as hard as it will be for him, because he believes he must do it for her. She will be with him all the way, and he will know, and be grateful of her company, even if from a distance.

He will work right up until three years before his death (default retirement having been declared unlawful in 2011).

He will meet two different women who take more than a passing interest in him, and by whom he will be briefly tempted. He will turn down both. He will remain true to his Ruth. It was his last promise to her, made as he kissed her cold lips that afternoon when she left him for the last time.

Harry will live for a little over another decade. He will not quite live to see his 70th birthday, but he will live long enough to see two grandchildren born, and to make peace with his son. Ruth knows the date, the place and the exact time to the second when he will die. (It will be part of her task to ensure he has someone with him at his moment of death. He will not die alone.) She knows the cause of his death; it is to be from a heart attack, and it will be sudden and unexpected, and death will take him quickly.

Soon after Ruth had died, Harry had purchased a burial plot adjacent her own. He has left instructions for what is to be inscribed on his gravestone. It will read:

_PEARCE_

_Henry James (Harry) KBE_

_1953 – 2023_

_Father of Catherine and Graham_

_Reunited with his Ruth_

He will welcome death; he will not fight to stay alive, and she will be there to welcome him as he leaves his body.

After his death, Harry and Ruth will indeed be reunited. Without the distractions brought about by being in their bodies, the desires and drives of which have tended to complicate rather than enhance, they will once again fit together as two halves of a Perfect Whole. They will spend considerable time together in spirit before planning another lifetime – which they will spend together.

They will have earned it.

**oOo**

_The course of true love never did run smooth._

Spoken by Lysander,_ A Midsummer Night's Dream_; Act 1, Scene 1

**oOo**

_**I don't know about how you have found reading this, but I have found the writing of this story to be a struggle, but all in all, it has been a cathartic experience.**_

_**I have tried to make it a positive and uplifting story, despite the death of Ruth.**_

_**I have experienced the deaths of a number of people close to me, and so I am aware of the ability some of us have to communicate quite freely with the dead. I thought it might give an interesting – and ultimately optimistic - twist to the continuing story of H & R.**_


End file.
